


the person you become

by plinys



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-02-26 15:57:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13239114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: “That’s why I called you,” Sara insists, “Come help me with my baby, Ava.”(Or in which, due to the wonders of time travel, Sara suddenly has a baby and immediately turns to the most rational person she knows to help raise him, knowing that there's no way Ava could possibly turn her down.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MusicalWheaten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalWheaten/gifts).



> this fic is dedicated to emily, who made me fall in love with the idea of this, started as a joke, now im writing a multi chapter avalance au about it

It all starts with a phone call.

On a frequency that Ava hasn’t used in over a month.

The frequency reserved for the infamous  _ Legends _ .

The thing is, Ava doesn’t care, or she’s not supposed to care about what they’re up to anymore.

Now that the Mallus situation has been taken care of, and Ava had finally received a well deserved promotion for her part in it, the Legends are supposed to be someone else’s problem, and she’s free to do her job, to do the one thing she’s always wanted, to fix things, without worrying about a band of idiots messing it all up.

Even if she may have started to feel things for them before.

Working together may have brought them closer - Ava had discovered that  _ saving the world  _ did that to people - but when the case was closed, the Legends went back to wandering through time and Ava went back to her paperwork. 

But there’s something about it.

The shrill ringing of her comm unit. 

The memory of times before where she used to react to that sound with a mix of annoyance and something else. Something that Ava had done everything in her power while working with the Legends not to dwell on. 

Because the alternative would’ve meant -

The shrill ringing continues, cutting through any attempt at thought or work, and Ava abandons her paperwork to turn on the display screen in her office, a direct link to Sara’s office in the Waverider. 

“Hey, Ava, miss me?”

“No,” she says, it only sounding a little bit like a lie. 

Seeing Sara for the first time in over a month is…  _ Good _ isn’t the right word, but it’s the first one that comes to Ava’s mind. She looks good, as always, though a little bit worn down, there’s a tired look in Sara’s eyes, like she hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in a while. A feeling that Ava can very much sympathize with. 

“What trouble have your Legends got up to this time?”

“It’s not trouble,” Sara starts to say.

Ava scoffs.

“Since when are the Legends not trouble,” she asks, “You know, technically, you’re Agent Harper’s problem now. I can transfer you, if you’ve forgotten his frequency.” 

“No, I wanted to talk to you.”

“Why?”

And that seems to be the question of the hour.

Sara fidgets in place for a moment, not exactly answering, hesitating. Though Ava cannot understand why she would have bothered calling if she didn’t want to talk about it.

Finally Sara blurts it out, the question, soft almost, not as abrasive as usual, “What do you know about babies?”

“Babies?”

“Like human babies?”

“I assumed you meant human babies,” Ava says stiffly, reaching for her tablet already ready to pull up a map of whatever anachronism the Legends had decided to meddle in, “Where are you right now?”

“On the Waverider,” Sara replies with a smart ass tone.

The sort of tone that Ava would be quick to tell her off for, if it wasn’t for the tablet’s reading in front of her, showing that, as of the Time Bureau records, the Legends hadn’t selected any anachronism to deal with, which didn’t add up unless they were up to something.

“You have a baby on the Waverider?”

“Ah, there we go,” Sara says, shooting finger guns at the screen, “Took you long enough.”

“Why do you have a baby on that  _ ship _ ?”

“Don’t let Gideon hear you talk about her like that, she can be very petty.”

“It’s not Gideon that I’m worried about. Gideon could take care of a baby, it’s the rest of you I’m worried about.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence, Agent Sharpe,” the disembodied voice of Sara’s AI comes through her side of the screen.

Which causes a smile to spill out across Sara’s face.

It’s a good smile.

A smile that a small part of Ava has been missing for a while. 

A smile that spells trouble. 

“That’s why I called you,” Sara insists, “Come help me with my baby, Ava.” 

“You’re joking, right?”

“You’ll have to come and see,” Sara says with a shrug before signaling for Gideon to cut the transmission. 

She stares at the blank screen for a moment. Knowing that it would be so easy to just ignore this, to go back to her paperwork, and her Legend free life.

But there was another part of her that wanted to use the Time Courier on her wrist to take her to their ship right now and investigate. 

Even if it was just a joke to get her back on their ship,Something Ava wouldn’t put past Sara, and the fact that she had gotten Gideon to play along well… Gideon had never liked Ava, so that wasn’t nearly as far fetched as it might have seemed, were Ava anyone else.

And what if the Legends did have a baby? 

Maybe babysitting for Lily Stein, though Ava can’t imagine why any rational person would trust the Legends with their child, but that was most certainly not her place. There was also, when she considered it, the likelihood of the Legends having stolen a baby from somewhere in time, just because they were the  _ Legends _ .

Investigating seems like the best option.

Even if it’s nothing.  

Especially if it’s nothing.

Ava uses her Time Courier to open a portal right into Sara’s office, just as she had done many times before. 

“Ha, I told you she’d show up,” Sara says, triumphantly when Ava steps through the portal. 

“Well shit,” Nate says, but Ava ignores him.

She ignores all of them to focus on Sara “If this is some sort of joke-”

“It’s not a joke,” Sara insists, stepping up, into Ava’s space. Almost too close for comfort, before she grabs onto Ava’s shoulders, and turns her around in the opposite direction. Where Amaya - probably the only rational member of this team - stands holding a baby.

He’s tiny, a infant, can’t be more than a week or so old.

So clearly not the Stein baby. 

“What is-”

“Ava, meet my son.”

Of all the things she was expecting Sara to say,  _ that  _ was not it. Though when she looks back at Sara there’s a sort of almost hopeful look in her eyes. A look that tells Ava as much as she wants Sara to be lying that she’s not. 

“I - I’m sorry - how did this happen?”

“Well,” Sara drawls, “You see when a mommy and daddy think fucking out their problems will fix things-”

“I know how sex works,” Ava cuts her off.

“Do you though?”

“Sara-”

“I mean, when it’s with a man there’s a chance that things could  _ happen _ , which wild, right? Though I guess you wouldn’t really know about that since-”

“This is a joke. I’m leaving.”

“Gideon,” Sara calls.

“I can confirm, Agent Sharpe, that this is not a joke.” 

“You’re telling me that Sara had a baby, and that that baby is currently,” Ava gestures to where Amaya is still holding the infant, “Right there?”

“Yeah,” Sara drawls, “That happened.” 

“I was there,” Zari chimes in, “I mean, it was super gross and Gideon did most the work but like, a baby physically came out of that woman, and I personally have never in my life been more glad to be a lesbian who never intends to push a child out of her vagina. So yeah.”

She’d like to think that Zari wouldn’t lie to her.

And Amaya, still the only really rational one, wouldn’t have let this go on this far if it was a joke. 

“This is real?”

“This is real,” Sara confirms.

“I need a drink,” Ava says, going to where she knows Sara keeps her whiskey, the good expensive stuff, and pouring herself a glass.

Which is around the same time Sara claims the infant - no,  _ her _ infant -  back from Amaya and kicks the rest of the team out of her office. So that it’s just the two of them. 

She’s not usually the drinking type, especially not on Bureau time, but Sara with a baby in her arms, looking at Ava like  _ that  _ means a break from the rules. She needs it to deal with all of this.

When she sets the glass back down, empty now, a burning still lingering in her throat, she finally asks the one thing that doesn’t add up in all of this - because Sara not using protection and accidentally getting pregnant felt on brand for her - but this - “I saw your a month ago, you weren’t pregnant.”

“Actually, I might have been,” Sara says, “I mean, I wasn’t showing yet, but you know.”

“People don’t just have a baby in a month.”

“We’re not normal people, Ava, we have time travel.”

Time travel.

As if that could explain it all away.

And, technically, it could. 

Not that Ava much likes that explanation.

There were rules to time travel and Ava is pretty sure Sara had just broken most of them. 

And yet - 

“Are you saying that it’s been  _ nine  _ months for your team, while it’s been one for the rest of us?” 

“Actually, it was just me,” Sara says, “Had the team drop me off somewhere nice and cushy, spent some time there, and they picked me up what was a half an hour later for them, right on time for me and this little buddy.” 

She moves the baby as she says this, and Ava’s eyes are drawn to him, Sara’s  _ son _ , that apparently existed now. There a lot of questions Ava wants to ask, so many things that don’t make sense and don’t add up, that she’s not even sure she knows where to begin. 

So, she just starts with the basics. “What’s his name?”

“Lance,” Sara replies, as though it should be obvious.

Ava, barely resists the urge to roll her eyes, “Not his last name.” 

Sara makes some sort of half shrugging movement, a not answer. 

“You didn’t seriously name him  _ Lance Lance  _ did you?”

“I’m not that vain,” Sara insists, “Though actually, now that you mention it, he does look like a Lance.” 

“Sara -”

“Look, Ava, I need you to help me with this baby,” Sara says, all teasing in her voice set aside for a moment, “No one on this ship knows what to do with a baby.”

“And I look like the type of person that would?”

“No, but you’re the type of person that could figure out ten times faster than I could.” 

Well, she wasn’t wrong. 

Leaving a baby with the Legends was a recipe for disaster. 

And her mind was already thinking of things they would have to do - initial doctor’s appointments, buying a crib, baby proofing her townhouse, and asking her moms for their extensive collection of parenting books.

“Fuck it,” Ava says, “I can’t let you kill him, now can I?”

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

“Tell me I’m insane. That this is a bad idea, that I should call Sara up and just take it all back. Go let the Legends deal with the little monster?”

She feels that way.

Certainly, this wasn’t how she expected to be spending her Wednesday morning.

Ava had called in sick for the first time in three years today, citing a family emergency that nobody had looked twice at even though her family wasn’t even in this century, and instead of spending the day taking the bed rest that she insisted she would be needing for the rest of the week, she was here - with Gary of all people, since he was the only person she felt comfortable conning into helping her with this, mostly due to the fact he was too terrified of her to actually mention it to anyone else - baby proofing her townhouse.

Gary doesn't say anything for a moment, probably because he’s currently trying to fit the outlet covers into every exposed outlet in Ava’s apartment. As if a two week old baby could somehow manage to climb on top of a counter and electrocute itself.

Then again, seeing as who his mother was, Ava wouldn’t be entirely surprised if it did happen.

Better safe than sorry, which, was sort of why she was doing this. Because the Waverider was only ever a recipe for disaster and the idea that a tiny defenseless human could be stuck on there was too much for Ava to handle.

Ava can’t help the desperation that slips into her voice as she says, “I bought a crib, because that’s the point we’re at... I have a baby’s crib in my living room.”

“Technically, you have the box of a yet to be assembled crib.”

She shoots him a glare.

“I’m just saying-”

“It wasn’t like I had much of a choice,” Ava cuts him off before he can finish his sentence, because _this_ was what it all boiled down to.

Sara asking for her help, and Ava having no choice but to help her.

That had been the trend for them before. The Legends messing things up, calling Ava in, or her just showing up on her own knowing that they need the help. She had thought that with Mallus taken care of that would be over and done with, that she’d never have to see another Legend again, but clearly she was wrong.

Because Sara had said that she needed her.

And Ava could never say no to that.

“I think you’re a good person,” Gary says.  

Ava wrinkles her nose, “Don’t go around telling people that.”

  


*

  


“You baby proofed your apartment?”

“Gary, helped,” Ava says, which judging from Sara’s face wasn’t the answer she was expecting.

She’s harder to read now that she usually is - than she used to be when they were working side by side - but that might be because of the little distraction in her arms, wrapped up in a blue blanket, asleep against her chest where Sara is holding him.

For now, at least.

From the parenting books she had picked up when she popping into the future to visit her moms - and hadn’t _that_ been a visit - she knew it was only a matter of time before he started crying again.

Thankfully she had prepared for this.

Ava is nothing if not prepared.

“I built a crib,” Ava says, “We could lay him down in there, while I give you the tour of the place.”

“You built a crib?”

“What else was I supposed to do?”

Sara seems to consider that for a moment, pursing her lips slightly, before adjusting the baby in her arms. When she doesn’t seem to be willing to offer commentary on that, Ava feels the smallest hint of relief, leading Sara in through the entry way into where her living room and the crib is.

“I don’t have a guest room, but the couch pulls out, and I figured you’d want him as close to you as possible.”

Ava watches as she looks around the room, looks around the whole place really. A part of her wonders what Sara’s assessment is, what the look on her face means, another part of her is afraid to ask, uncertain that she’ll like the answer.

She knows what her place looks like. White walls, with more empty space than it should have, barely lived in. Ava has always been a workaholic, and here it shows most of all.  

“Thank you,” Sara says, soft for a moment.

The words she’s been saying in her head for the past twenty-four hours that she really didn’t have a choice in all of this, never manage to fall from her lips.

Instead she watches as Sara carefully tucks the baby into the crib with care.

“I also bought this,” Ava says, grabbing the toy off of the table, “I know it’s a little soon but-”

“A giraffe?”

“It has the largest heart of any land mammal,” Ava says.

Sara blinks at that. “What?”

There’s no way to say it. How she had been standing in a store this morning, looking up animals facts on her phone to pick out which comfort animal would be a best fit for the baby, and how this little fun fact had given her pause. Reminding her too much of a team, and _their captain_ , that all too often led with their hearts rather than with their heads.

Instead, all Ava manages to say is, “Fun fact.”

Sara takes it at face value.

Her lips quirking up into a small hint of a smile, teasing mostly. “You must be a real pleasure at trivia night.”

Ava doesn’t respond to be joke.

“Technically it’s pointless to give them comfort objects until they’re a few months old, babies don’t start to form attachments until around four months usually,” Ava says, instead, bringing the subject back to where it started. “But I couldn’t resist.”

“You’re secretly a softie after all, aren’t you?”

“No,” Ava shakes her head, “Definitely not.”

“It’s okay,” Sara reassures her, “I’ll only tell the Legends.”

“That’s exactly what I’m worried about.”

Sara laughs at that, a loud sound, that only serves to wake the baby up in the crib. She leans down into over crib where the baby has finally opened his eyes, watching the two women above him, Sara holds the stuffed giraffe over the crib. Waving it about a little before tucking it next to him.

“Look, little Lance, what mommy Ava got for you,” Sara cooes.

“Don’t call me that,” Ava says, quickly, probably too quickly.

Because there’s a sort of tight feeling in her chest that she doesn’t know how to deal with. A feeling she that used to catch her by surprise before, that she had squashed down in regards to Sara Lance months ago, the fact that it was coming back now meant nothing.

“Softie,” Sara insists, straightening up from the crib.

That teasing smile is still on her face, the usually annoys Ava.

She focuses on that feeling.

Annoyance.

Ava can handle being annoyed with Sara.

It’s anything else that she can’t.

“How about that tour,” Ava offers.

This time when Sara nods Ava moves, leading the way around her townhouse. She talks as she walks, pointing out to Sara where the downstairs bathroom is, making their way through her kitchen space up the spiral staircase that leads to the second floor loft space that Ava keeps as her bedroom and home office.

It isn’t much.

She hadn’t been looking for luxury when she picked the place.

She’d been looking for relative privacy, and downstairs roommates that weren’t too loud. Thankfully in the four years that she’d lived here the various tenants of that had occupied bottom two floors of the townhouse over the years had never been the overly noisy type.

Also thankfully not the overly social type.

They end up back in the kitchen, Ava brushing past the upstairs space, and settling down in the only place that really had rules.

It’s then that she notices something which a part of her had noticed throughout the whole little tour, but that she had chosen to ignore the implications of.

Sara’s eyes on her.

She had originally thought it was just Sara being attentive, but then again this was _Sara Lance_ that they were talking about. And while Sara may have been watching her like a hawk, it quickly becomes clear that she’s not actually listening.

“You’re staring at me,” Ava says, stopping in the middle of her tour.

They’re standing in the middle of Ava’s kitchen, where moments before she had been reminding Sara to unplug the toaster after using it, but now suddenly talking about her finicky appliances doesn’t seem important. Not when Sara is looking at her like _that_. It’s a look she had seen before, back when it had finally been her turn to save Sara’s life.

A look of thanks, and something else.

Something more.

Something that had once made Ava hopeful for something before she pushed that feeling down to focus on her job and the thread of Mallus and saving the whole of time.

But now, there is none of that.

Now there’s just her and Sara standing together in her kitchen.

“Yeah,” Sara says after a moment, “I am.”

“Any reason as to why?”

“I guess, I’m shocked,” Sara admits. “I didn’t think you’d do all of this.”

“You called me,” Ava says.

As if that should explain everything.

As far as Ava was concerned it did.

“You called me,” Ava repeats, “And said you had a baby and that you needed me, so I -” she tries not to focus on Sara’s smile, still there, “- What else was I supposed to do?”

It was the same question she asked Gary.

But softer now.

Less of a joke and more of something else.

Sara’s answer is equally unhelpful. “I knew I called the right person.”

Ava’s not entirely certain what to make of that.

A feeling she’s all too used to Sara leaving her with.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Sara admits, “Not really, but you seem to have it all figured out.”

“I read parenting books instead of sleeping last night,” Ava says, a confession of her own.

Sara laughs at that, wild and happy.

Ava almost wants to join her.

“I mean, I used to babysit, but they were like toddlers, the closest I got was when Mick and I had to look after the infant versions of the other Legends, and - actually, it’s a funny story, I’m not technically supposed to remember it, but you see Rip gave us this pill and I-”

“I don’t want to know,” Ava says, shaking her head “It sounds like breaking the rules of time travel, which I don’t know why that would surprise me, but still...”

“Oh, it totally was,” Sara says, smiling fondly, at some memory that Ava doesn’t have. Some mission that she doesn’t know about.

Sara looks happy though. A small soft smile on her face.

Ava makes a mental note to go through the records they pulled from the Waverider while the ship was in Bureau custody next time she was in HQ, and find this exact _incident_ just so she can understand.

“You can stay here as long as you need,” Ava offers, after a moment.

Those must be the right words, because the softness shifts again, back into an expression that Ava knows well, one that she’s comfortable with. “So the next eighteen years?”

Ava rolls her eyes.

“I meant just until you find a place of your own.”

  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

Ava wakes in the early hours of the morning to the sound of the baby crying. Not an entirely unexpected sound, but a sound that she’s heard the last two nights pretty consistently. Which is why she doesn’t really move.

She lays there and listens for the other sounds, the ones that always follow. The tell-tale creak of the floorboards as Sara gets up from the couch, the sound of her feet loud against the floor, the quiet hush of her voice as she must be pulling Lance up out of his cradle. 

The crying quiets down sometime after that.

As it always does.

And Ava listens instead to the sound of Sara moving around her apartment, shifting into the kitchen, flicking on a light that shines up the spiral staircase such that it lightly illuminates Ava’s room, the sound of the refrigerator opening and then closing again.

She can’t make out Sara’s words, not really, just the sounds she makes, a soft hum to the baby in her arms. 

For all the times that she has said she wasn’t going to be any good at this, everything Ava had seen so far seemed to prove contrary. Sara knew what she was doing for the most part - sure maybe she fussed over the baby too much, had chosen the most unfortunate name for the little guy, and barely listened to the pieces of advice that Ava had pulled from her parenting books, but she was trying.

Far more than Ava would have ever expected especially from a Legend. 

Maybe, she had underestimated Sara. 

Just maybe.

Ava rolls over, checking her clock on her night stand. It was late enough that going back to sleep seems pointless. So she pushes herself out of a bed, and changes from her pajamas into her running clothes. 

A jog would be a good way to start the morning, a way to clear her head of any Sara distractions. Like why that her bed has never seemed too large and empty before but lately has started to seem to be. 

Which was absurd because the only option was inviting Sara up and off the couch and that wasn’t really an option.

No, for all that they were currently living together.

For all that Ava was helping Sara sort out her life now that there was a  _ baby  _ involved.

They weren’t like  _ that _ .

They were barely even friends. 

Just two people that fate kept thrusting together for better or worse. 

“Sorry if he woke you up,” Sara says, when Ava finally makes it downstairs.

“I was getting up anyways.” 

She’s got Lance resting against her shoulder as she fidgets with Ava’s coffee machine. Ava steps into her space to help her, their shoulders bumping for a brief moment as she works the controls to get the machine running a moment later. 

“Still,” Sara insists.

“Still,” Ava echoes. 

 

*

 

Being back at the Time Bureau after what were probably her first days off since she started working here is disorientating to say the least. 

“I feel like I missed a lifetime’s worth of work,” Ava says. 

Gary, the only person that actually knows where she’s been, nods at her from the other side of her desk. He’s helping Ava to sort through all the paperwork that she’s missed and all of the missions that have occured in her absence.

“I’m never taking a day off again,” she insists.

“What about his first day of school,” Gary says.

And for a second it almost sounds like he’s teasing her, but this is  _ Gary  _ of all people, he shouldn’t have enough of a backbone to tease her. 

She shoots him her most intimidating glare. 

It seems to work because a moment later he looks sheepish, thought still stuck on  _ this  _ topic because his next question comes just as fast, “Did she really name the baby after herself?”

“Apparently,” Ava says, “ _ Lance Lance.  _ That kid’s going to get bullied all through school.” 

As if right on cue, as if sensing her talking about them from all these miles away, her phone buzzes against her desk, and she reaches over to snatch it off the surface, avoiding whatever look Gary is giving her. She gestures for him to continue with the paperwork as she slides up to unlock her phone, and reveal the message sent to her by Sara.

It’s a slightly blurry selfie taken in Ava’s bathroom, Sara with her hair up in a messy bun wearing a loose white shirt and gym shorts and an exaggerated frown on her face, Lance in the arm not holding the phone, his head resting against Sara’s shoulder, staring at the mirror reflection. 

The caption under the photo simply reads:  _ We miss you _ . 

Ava’s not sure how to explain it. The swell in her chest. But it’s there. It happens. It pushes at her insides until she’s not sure how to process any of it. How she’s supposed to manage all of these new feelings. 

It’s confusing. 

“Do you need to take that,” Gary asks, interrupting her thoughts.

Ava looks up at him, up at the pile of paperwork and all the work that needs to be done, and shakes her head, “It’s not important.” 

*

 

“What about this place, it’s down near the marina, reasonably priced,” Ava says, reading the description of the apartment off of her laptop. Searching for apartments for Sara isn’t exactly the easiest task to do, mostly because Sara’s difficult, and Ava can only type one handed, as her other arm is occupied with holding Lance while Sara washes the dishes from dinner.

Or tries to.

“I’ll pass,” Sara says, water splashing on the floor as she turns to look over her shoulder at Ava, “Me and boats don’t exactly have the best track record.”

“Right, shit.” 

“You know,” Sara drawls, turning away from the sink completely for a moment, “I do know a place. Really good neighborhood, lots of windows and white walls that make it seem bright and welcoming, kitchen’s nice and spacious.”

“It sounds lovely.”

“The only problem is the roommate, she can be a bit of a stick in the mud when she wants to be,” Sara says, and when Ava catches her eyes there’s a mischievous look in there.

Trouble.

Because when is Sara not trouble. 

“I’m seriously trying to help you here,” Ava says, shooting her an unamused look over the top of the laptop screen. 

Sara, ever the child even when there is an actual child in the room, sticks her tongue out at Ava before turning back to her task.

“The problem is I don’t have a job; can’t get an apartment without a job.”

Ava hadn’t considered that. But it made sense, when Sara was off being a Legend, everything she needed coming from the Waverider, there had been no need to have a job, no need to save up money. But now here back in the world where time moves in a linear fashion, people have to actually pay for things. 

“I see,” Ava says, clicking open a new tab to go to a job searching website instead, “I can help with that.” 

Sara snorts. “I dropped out of college when I nearly died, I mean - I’m trained as an assassin if anyone needs that, which actually, I could be a career criminal. Ollie needs some new competition-”

“Don’t.”

“I was only joking,” Sara insists, turning back to Ava once more. Despite her words, her face does not look like she was joking. 

“You weren’t,” Ava insists.

Sara just shrugs in return.

“I could probably get you your job at Sink, Showers, and Stuff back.”

Sara grimaces, “I’d rather die. And that’s saying something, because I’ve done that a few times. Don’t knock it till you try it.”

“No thank you.”

Sara purses her lips. It’s something she does when she’s thinks, Ava’s realizes this by now, one of Sara’s many quirks, each one that Ava has carefully catalogued without fully realizing it. 

“I suppose I could go back to bartending,” Sara says, “It’s just hard with the little guy.”

Lance shifts in Ava’s arm as if sensing that he’s being mentioned.

Ava moves her hand away from the keyboard to press against his back holding him there, until he settles down once more.

“I could talk to the Directors,” Ava says, quieter now, “I know Director Hunter has a fond spot for you, perhaps we could work something out where you were a consultant for the Time Bureau, at least until things get better sorted with Lance.” 

Sara’s expression is hard to read at that.

Displeased.

Disappointed.

Like Ava had said the wrong thing, when she didn’t even know what the right thing was. 

“I want to get back to my team, to the Legends,” Sara insists. 

There’s longing in her voice. It’s been not even a week, but Ava’s had a feeling that this was coming; she’d seen the restless energy in Sara. Ava had spent years researching Sara, she knew better than anyone that Sara had never been the type to sit still and in one place for too long. She needed the freedom to move, to spread her wings, to be the  _ hero  _ that she liked to think that she was. 

Ava had written essays once on how that very nature of Sara’s was the reason all of time had broke. She just hadn’t realizes how that same nature could mess up so many other things.

“It’s not safe for a baby on the-”

“I know that,” Sara snaps, far too loud. “You’ve made that point very clear.”

“I’m trying to help,” Ava insists. “You asked me to help, and I’m trying to, so unless you want to drop yourself off in another pocket of time for nine more months-”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about!”

“Because you won’t tell me!”

“I don’t need your judgement,” Sara says the anger still there in her voice. 

This feels natural.

Fighting with Sara.

Arguing about something. 

Familiar. 

But there’s something else, a feeling of regret that never used to be there before, already beginning to take seed in Ava’s heart. So she stops herself, resists the urge to respond barb with barb, and lets out a long breath, closes her eyes and counts to ten in her head before opening her eyes and turning back to the situation.

When she does Sara’s back is to her, and she’s back to scrubbing at the dishes aggressively. 

“I don’t mean to upset you,” Ava says, choosing her words carefully, “Just, unless you plan on giving Lance to whoever his father is, going back to the Waverider isn’t exactly an option at the moment, maybe in a few years, but…” 

Ava trails off when she hears a soft sound from Sara.

Not anger.

Not anymore.

A sort of acceptance. 

“Yeah, I know.” 

 

*

 

Ava wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of the baby crying. This time though she doesn’t just linger in bed and wait for Sara to inevitably get up; instead Ava slips out of bed, taking the stairs down two at a time so that she gets there first.

Gets there right as Sara is stirring on the couch. 

She catches her reflection in the light from the front window, blinking half asleep, a little confused. 

Ava turns away from Sara, instead reaching into the crib and picking Lance up. He’s still crying, but he quiets down slightly once he’s in her arms, a quiet snuffling sound against her shoulder. 

Her voice is soft, but still that special tone she uses with small children, “Who’s the little spawn of satan,” she coos at him, “Yes, you are.” 

There’s a snort from over her shoulder, and when she turns back around, Sara’s sitting up on the couch now. Her hair is a mess around her face, the strap of her tank top slid down her shoulder, but she’s looking at Ava like she holds all of the wonders of the universe.

Ava doesn’t know how to deal with that.

Nor does she know how to deal with the butterflies that make a home in her stomach, when Sara says in a soft sleepy voice, “Thanks, Aves.” 

  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update y'all some negative ive seen about social medias + just work in general had made me too worn down to write the last few days. hopefully getting back into the swing of things now.
> 
> (also this chapter is exactly 1000 words, which is kinda small, but i felt accomplished with how nice that word count turned out so...)

It becomes a routine.

They take care of the baby and they take care of each other, and Ava lets herself slip into the domesticity of it. It’s easy to wake up in the morning and see Sara and Lance there, to go to work and smile down at her phone during breaks, to come home to whatever  _ this  _ is 

“Where did you learn to cook,” Ava asks, because it's Saturday and Sara is making omelettes still in her pajamas despite the fact that it's nearly noon. 

Ava’s at the table reading through another one of the parenting books her moms had given her, while Lance is finally sleeping in the other room.

A small miracle.

“I am a woman of many talents, Agent Sharpe,” Sara says in a high and lofty tone, before turning away from the stove to wink at Ava.

Or at least try to wink; Ava is not entirely certain that Sara knows how, though the way she contorts her whole face in an attempt to is cute enough that Ava doesn't question it.

She also pointedly doesn't question when her mind started finding Sara's flaws to be cute.

“Amaya taught me,” she admits after a moment, “They kept complaining that all I ever made when it was my turn for dinner duty was dino nuggets, which to be clear are delicious, but apparently they're not an  _ adult  _ food.”

“They're not,” Ava agrees.

“You would say that,” Sara says, sticking her tongue out at Ava before turning back to their brunch. “But anyways, that's why I now know how to cook six whole meals, one of which is omelettes.” 

“What are the other five?”

“You'll just have to wait and find out.”

That was the thing about Sara, the thing that Ava had realized only now that they were sharing a space together - there was so many things Ava didn't know about her. Certainly, she had studied Sara before, knew all the facts and figures about her misadventures through time, and even what had been recorded of her history before that. But there was a difference between knowing Sara’s fighting style and knowing how much cheese she put in her omelettes. 

A difference that Ava is only now realIzing, only now starting to put together. Spending time with Sara has meant finding out more than the facts on paper could ever tell her, and it’s almost shocking when she realizes that she likes what she finds out. 

She likes Sara.

More than she has before.

Not just as an attraction.

Or as subject of study.

Or even as an  _ ally  _ when the situation had come down to it.

But as person. 

As the person that walked around Ava’s kitchen with familiarity, that hummed under her breath as she made them breakfast, and smiled whenever their eyes met for more than a moment.

She’s not sure what to do with this realization. 

Thankfully she’s saved from having to act on it as Sara turns around once more, with that same smile that makes Ava’s heart stop for a second. “We need to do a grocery run.” 

 

*

 

“Okay but which bag of baby oranges looks better?”

“They’re called clementines.”

“Baby oranges,” Sara insists, cradling one of the bags to her chest, like it was the very baby that was currently resting in the travel carrier attached to Ava. 

Acting soundly and sensibly, unlike his mother who was still squinting at the bags of clementines. 

“We could just get real oranges.”

“Yeah, no,” Sara says shaking her head, “I can’t peel those.”

“You’re joking,” Ava says in a tone only half disbelief. 

She watches as Sara wrinkles her nose, finally picking a bag of oranges to put in the car. “Big oranges are biphobic.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Ava points out.

“You don’t make sense,” Sara replies, sticking her tongue out.

“Very mature.”

“I’ll have you know that I am-”

“Sara?” 

An unfamiliar voice cuts Sara off, and she turns away from Ava and instead towards the source of the voice. Ava follows her, shifting so that she can see the other woman that joins them. She’s not entirely unfamiliar to Ava. Despite the fact that Ava has never met her, she had done her research on the Legends before working with them originally. Which had included looking at people who had been previous members or allies of the team.

This woman looks far too sensible to have ever been a Legend.

Maybe that was why she had left.

“Kendra, this is Ava, my personal baby chauffeur.”

Ava snorts, “Honestly, I feel like that might be the entire reason I was invited on this grocery trip.”  

She shakes Kendra’s hand, before offering to continue the shopping on her own that way Sara can catch up with her friend- something that earns her a thankful look from Sara in return. Ava hands Lance off to Sara so that her and Kendra can coo over him properly, and takes ahold of the cart, shifting away from the fruits and over towards the vegetables.

It’s only as she’s leaving that she hears Kendra say in what is meant to be a whisper to Sara but is loud enough that Ava can only pretend not to have heard it, “So she seems  _ nice _ .”

 

*

 

“What is he wearing?”

“It was a gift from Kendra,” Sara insists, as if that explains everything. 

It does not. 

Because Lance is wearing a shirt that says _ ‘two mamas are better than one _ ’ and any hope Ava had had of sorting out what having Sara around so often was making her feel, is gone out the window in an instant. 

“You know I’m not actually his mom,” Ava says, ignoring the tightness in her chest.

As if ignoring it will make it easier. 

A part of her wonders if she can also ignore the soft way Sara smiles at her from the other side of the room when she says, “Yeah, but you’re the one who is here.”

  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is dedicated to maya who made [this amazing art ](https://meyanas.tumblr.com/post/169665983708/sara-and-lance-lance-from-that-wild-lance-hunter) of sara and lance lance, it's so beautiful bless her

She wakes up to the familiar sound of Lance crying in the middle of the night. Doesn’t move for a long moment, because she has an important meeting in the morning and it is Sara’s turn to be on middle of the night duty. 

Instead she waits, laying there in a dark for the telltale sign of Sara getting up.

A sound that never comes. 

His crying increases in volume, almost as if he’s noticed that he’s been left alone, reacting to an instinctive feeling of abandonment. Ava pushes herself out of bed at that sound, taking the spiral stairs two at a time until she’s reached the crib, pulling Lance up to her and making soft soothing sounds as she hold him until he quiets down.

It is only once he calms that she turns away from the cribs and confirms her suspicions.

The couch where Sara normally sleeps is empty. Blankets rumpled, water bottle knocked off the coffee table, phone charger lacking the phone normally plugged into it. 

She tries not to let it worry her as she settles onto the other side of the couch, turning on one of the lamps so that she can sit there with Lance until he settles down. It’s not an easy process, the baby still sniffling against her, but calming now that he seems to realize he’s not alone.

A feeling that Ava can’t entirely sympathize with.

A part of her is worried about Sara, about where she could have gone off to in the middle of the night.

Another, stronger part of her is annoyed that she did so without saying anything to Ava, leaving Lance alone, without a second thought. 

Perhaps, Ava tells herself foolishly, she only stepped outside for some fresh air and will be back soon enough.

But the clock ticks on and Lance falls asleep against her shoulder and Ava manages two chapters in her book, before in inevitable soft popping sound of a time portal opening in her living room appears.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where Sara has been, not when Ava can clearly see the place she’s left behind when she steps through. She’s a little banged up, dressed in a style of fashion that hadn’t been popular since the late 90s, with blood staining the collar of her jean jacket.

Sara seems to notice Ava’s eyes on  _ that  _ in particular. “It’s not mine.”

“That doesn’t make it better,” Ava insists, her voice an angry whisper.

She hadn’t realized just how angry she was until Sara was there, but now the feeling comes back strong. Now that she knows that the cause of Sara’s absence wasn’t a reason to be worried. 

Anger is easy.

Anger Ava can handle.

“Where were you,” she asks, even though the answer was clear. She could have even asked  _ when  _ were you, as that was only slightly less obvious. 

“The Legends needed me,” Sara says defensively. 

“So you just left Lance alone,” Ava says, voice heavy with a mix of disbelief and disappointment.

“They were supposed to put me back as close to when I left as possible,” Sara looks at the clock, “It’s only been a few hours.”

“How long has it been for you?”

Sara shrugs. As if she honestly isn’t sure.

That’s the line of work that they’re in. 

No one is ever sure.

Days, weeks, months,  _ years  _ \- could pass in an instant. 

“What if you hadn’t made it back?” Ava asks, softer, less angry, more like the concern that had been holding tight to her heart since she woke up to find Sara gone. 

“I did,” Sara points out, gesturing to herself.

Ava’s voice fails her from asking the other question, the one that brings that tight worried feeling back:  _ What if next time you don’t _ .

“You were here,” Sara insists, before Ava can speak. 

This she can still handle. 

“And what if I wasn’t, if I was at work or-”

“Ray’s good with kids,” Sara says, as if that would fix everything, as if it could. 

It doesn't.

But she’s too tired to begin to explain to Sara why that is. Not when it’s so clear that she wouldn’t understand. 

This was why in all of Ava’s reports on Sara she had written  _ reckless without understanding  _ because she was, because she would risk her own life and her own happiness time and time again without realizing how that could hurt other people. 

How that could hurt them.

How that could hurt  _ her _ . 

“I have a meeting in the morning,” Ava says, voice tired and resigned.

This at least causes Sara to make an apologetic face for a moment, “Shit, I forgot,” before she moves to take Lance from Ava.

“Don’t bleed on him,” Ava says, pushing up from the couch and heading towards the stairs. 

Sara’s reassurance once again that it’s not her blood follows Ava as she goes, though it offers no real comfort. 

  
  


*

 

Ava’s never been much of a coffee person. Certainly she had a cup to kick her morning off right each day, but a coffee during her afternoon meeting was almost unheard of. Though that didn’t stop her from shooting Gary a thankful look when he’d come into the room to bring it to her. 

She blames her exhaustion for the fact that, when Rip shoots her a questioning look, she doesn’t manage to filter herself, “The baby kept me up last night.” 

It’s almost worth it.

For the look of shock and confusion on his face. 

The way he turns away from the meeting to focus on her, his brows furrowed, as he asks, “Since when do you have a baby?”

“It’s not mine,” Ava insists taking a long drink of her coffee. 

Though that doesn’t convince Rip to turn back to the meeting, and she’s not sure why she’s surprised by that. 

Ava sighs. “It’s Sara’s baby, but she’s been living with me for the past month.”

There’s something there. Something Ava isn’t sure how to explain. Maybe she’s just too tired to do so, or maybe it’s something else, maybe she doesn’t want to understand what that look means.

The sort of dawning horror on his face as he says, “Sara has a baby?”

“Yes.”

“Sara Lance?”

“The one and only.”

 

*

 

Her meetings run long.

Long enough that by the time they finish, all Ava wants to do is go home and curl up on her bed and sleep through the night.

Something that she knows won’t come easy because she and Sara are still going to have to talk about last night. They’d avoided each other most of the morning, pointedly not talking about what had happened. And there hadn’t even been an update text throughout the day of how Lance had been doing, something which still hadn’t stopped Ava from checking her phone with a small sense of hopefulness multiple times throughout the work day.

Wherever they were now.

It was on thin ice.

Ava, for her part, had already practiced her apology, in her office, before leaving. A concession on a few points that she may have been too harsh, but that she wasn’t entirely wrong.

Though the thought of any of that, of her practiced speech, falls away when she steps through the time portal into her living room, and is greeted by a sight that makes it hard to be angry.

Sara is curled up on the couch’s pull out bed, sleeping still in her day clothes, a clear sign that, despite the hour and the fact that she had been out all last night, that she had been trying to wait up for Ava only to have failed. She’s got Lance with her, sleeping in the space between Sara’s body and the side of the couch, protected there by her. 

It’s a beautiful image.

One of peace.

One of a family.

Of  _ her  _ family. 

And as she stares down her the only thing she can manage to think is that she loves them both too much to ever lose this. It’s a feeling that she knows with certainty, one that has been creeping up on her over the last month, the one feeling that she’s been pointedly trying to ignore.

The one feeling that she no longer can ignore.

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

“It’s a milestone,” she says, turning her phone to show Gary the picture of Lance, “Forty-five degrees.” 

“I don’t know what that means,” he says.

And truth be told Ava isn’t entirely sure either, but it was in her parenting books, so she was counting it as an accomplishment. Not as big as when Lance would eventually talk or walk or do  _ something  _ other than sleep and cry, but it was something. 

Sort of. 

“You’ve got a cute family, Agent Sharpe,” Gary says, passing the phone back to Ava. 

“It’s not-” she stops herself from finishing her sentence:  _ It’s not like that _ .

Because it was. 

Because the past few days have been proof that it was and even though they still hadn’t talked about yesterday’s situation, Ava was sure that eventually they would and everything would sort itself out properly because… Because she’s almost certain that she’s fallen for Sara.

Slowly and softly and not in the way that any of Ava’s other relationships had ever played out.

Certainly not how she would have ever imagined anything with  _ Sara  _ playing out. 

She looks down at the photo on her phone, of the little baby that she’s started to feel like is her own, even though she knows that he’s not. Even though she knows that until she makes a proper move, her time with this little family is limited. 

“I don’t know how to tell her to stay,” Ava admits.

Her voice small, full of doubts, the sort of doubts she normally keeps in her head, and certainly never voices to coworkers.

But Gary seems to understand.

Somehow.

“You should tell her that,” he insists, “Make some grand gesture and ask her to stay, something that only she would get.” 

Ava’s never been the type for romance. Not entirely sure how to do it. But there’s something in how he says ‘ _ something only she would get’  _ that gives Ava an idea. It’s more of a gift for Lance, but it’s something that Sara will understand the meaning of. And maybe at that moment she’ll finally be able to find the right words. 

“You know, that’s not a terrible idea.” 

 

*

 

She leaves work a little earlier than usual, opens the portal to her bedroom rather than the living room as usual so that she can surprise Sara with her gift for Lance. She has a plan for this, one delicately worked out before leaving, one that involves the toy in carefully wrapped in a  box under her arm, and a confession of feelings that have been brewing since December and, if Ava’s being honest with herself, are long overdue.

That plan goes right out the window though.

When she steps out into her bedroom and hears the sounds of two angry voices coming from the kitchen. 

“He’s only half your son,” Sara’s voice comes angrily, and loudly from the kitchen. 

A second voice joins hers, just as loud and familiar enough that Ava pauses from taking the spiral staircase down. “Yes, that’s typically how children work.”

“You’re unbelievable, if you think you can just-”

“Well, maybe if you had told me-”

“It wasn’t any of you business,” Sara says sharply, at him. 

Whatever it is, it’s not a good conversation, probably not one that Ava was meant to overhear. If she had stayed at work until her usual time, as planned, she probably wouldn’t have. It wasn’t too late now to go back up the two steps she’d taken down and open up a portal back to the Bureau for a few hours. 

Maybe give Sara time to sort out… Whatever this was. 

She knows exactly what this is, exactly who it is, but if she doesn’t go down into the kitchen where they’re arguing it’s easier to deny it. Easier to avoid the crushing feeling in her chest that has appeared to overwhelm her. 

Ava carefully steps backwards, up the last two steps, only to be foiled as she steps back onto the wood floor of her room, the floorboard creaking under her weight. 

Down below she hears Sara cut off in the middle of her rant. 

Her voice, more of a stage whisper than anything else as she says, “Shit, Ava’s home.” 

That comment. Careless. Not meant for her. For some reason, hurts more than anything. 

When Sara pitches her voice louder this time intending for Ava to hear, she tries not to focus on that new hurt. “Hey Aves? That you? You’re home early!”

She considers the present in her hand, the  _ gift,  _ the grand gesture, that now feels like a waste. This whole thing had been a terrible idea it had been from the beginning. She was the fool that had let herself get attached to it… To them.

She tosses the box onto her bed, before speaking loudly on her own, taking the stairs properly this time, “Yeah, we finished up early, wasn’t any reason to stick around once the paperwork was filed.”

That was a lie. Gary had offered to do the rest of the paperwork so she could talk to Sara.

But now, as Ava takes the stairs down into the kitchen,  _ talking  _ about how Ava feels is the last thing that she wants to do. 

Sara looks tense when she gets down there. Arms crossed over her chest where she leans against the kitchen counter. 

And Rip’s there, because as much as Ava had wanted to deny that she knew who that voice belonged to, the proof was right in front of her. In the way he seemed awkward and out of place, standing in her kitchen in his Time Bureau suit. 

“I should be going,” Rip says, abruptly, pointedly avoiding Ava’s gaze.

As if she were his superior agent, not the other way around. 

“Yeah, you should,” Sara agrees, her voice dry and inflectionless. Not the sugar sweet tone she had used calling up to Ava a moment before... 

When Ava tries to catch her eye, she turns away, so instead Ava focus on Rip. Who seems eager to leave, already reaching for the Time Courier on his wrist. 

“Sharpe,” he says, nodding at her, as he turns past, opening up a time portal back to the Bureau HQ.

“Hunter,” she replies with the same amount of enthusiasm, just as he leaves.

A part of her had hoped that once he was gone some of the tension in the air would have dissipated but the air still feels think with something that Ava can’t entirely describe. And Sara still has her arms crossed over her chest, an angry look on her face as she pointedly avoids looking at Ava.

“Sara,” Ava says, slowly and carefully, a question to the tension that still lingers there.

This time Sara does look up at her, and the angry look is directed Ava’s way, though she knows she’s done nothing to deserve it, other than steal Sara away from whatever internal dialogue was consuming her. 

“I need some air,” Sara says, sharply pushing herself away from the counter. 

“Yeah, okay,” Ava replies, not that Sara’s really listening to her. 

Not that it matters because in a moment she’s out the door, slamming it as she goes, and Ava is left wondering how they got  _ here  _ of all places.

 

*

 

“Your mother is complicated,” Ava tells the baby in her arms. 

She had been reading to him a moment before, after all it was important to read to babies while they were young, otherwise he’d fall short of his milestones. But she had stopped, and her eyes had drifted to the clock to realize that Sara still wasn’t back and it was just that… 

She didn’t know what to do.

How to reach out.

She was almost certain that Sara would have called the Legends, that if Ava created a portal to the Waverider that she would find her, but Sara had needed space after whatever it was that Ava had come home to.

And Ava understood that.

She’d needed space to process it all. 

“Little Lance Lance,” she speaks to the baby, knowing there’s no way he can respond, but getting a small measure of comfort out of it, “Or, I guess… It’d be Lance Hunter, technically, though I…” She trails off, no she wasn’t going to think about that right now. “Your whole life is going to be complicated.” 

Ava just hopes, as complicated as it gets, that she still gets to be a part of it.

Somehow.

She may not be his mother, but she was still… She still cared.

“I got you a gift,” she tells the baby in a conspiratorial tone, “Really it was more for you mommy, but she’s not here, so I guess it’s all for you.” 

The baby doesn’t react much in her arms.

He’s only a few months old.

She’s not really sure what sort of reaction she was hoping for. 

Still, she gets up from the couch, abandoning her book and taking Lance with her, past the kitchen that still seemed to carry some lingering tension even with everyone gone, and up the spiral staircase to her bedroom. 

“I know you can’t really form emotional attachments yet, and really this is a gift for a much older child,” Ava sits down on the edge of the bed and opens the wrapping carefully with one hand, while she continues explaining. “I got it because… It reminded me of your mother. The first time I fell for her, really and properly, of course, I didn’t know it then. I don’t think I wanted to admit it to myself.” 

She still wasn’t sure she wanted to.

It was so easy here.

Sitting alone in her home, with a baby, and a  _ Beebo  _ doll of all things. 

“I think I’m in love with you mom,” Ava confesses to the baby. “I don’t know if she feels the same about me, probably not knowing my track record, and I’m so afraid of losing both of you by admitting that that I… I don’t know what to do.” 

The baby predictably doesn’t offer a response, but he does open and clench his fist in the direction of the Beebo doll, which Ava figures counts. 

She lays him down on the bed so that he can hug onto the toy, and lets out a small laugh when it replies _ ,  _ “Beebo loves you.” 

“That’s still a little creepy,” she admits, wrinkling her nose. 

But she pushes past that when greeted with the adorable sight of Lance and the toy.

“Let me tell you a story,” she says, settling down on the other side of her bed, propping up so that she can watch Lance. “Of a the time I saved you mom’s life, just the one time, but I’m never going to let her live it down.”

It’s an easy story.

A familiar one.

She’s written multiple reports on the incident. The moment when they realized Mallus was a very real threat, the moment she _came_ _back_ to Sara because she asked for Ava’s help, and the moment Ava realized that her feelings for Sara were always going to be a risk. 

She leaves her emotions out of the story she tells Lance, focusing instead on the adventure, on the vikings and the toy that he was still hugging onto, and the successes. 

“You left out the part where I looked incredibly badass,” Sara says when Ava finishes her story.

Ava looks away from Lance for the first time since she began telling her story to look to where Sara is leaning against the wall near the staircase. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” Sara says with a shrug. 

“We should talk,” Ava says, even though the words hurt her, even though her chest is tight, even though that's the last thing that she wants to do.

“Can it wait until the morning,” Sara asks. “It’s been forty-eight hours for me and I’m sure you’ll find the incident report in the morning, but I just… I want to be horizontal.” 

She had been right then, about Sara going to see the Legends. She knew her well by now. Something that felt like both a good thing and a bad thing. 

Ava pats the spot on the bed next to her, and a moment later Sara is shooting her a thankful look as she accepts the open space. They’re on either side of Lance, where he’s finally fallen asleep in the middle of them, still clutching onto the Beebo doll.

She’d need to move him downstairs before they fell asleep. 

Though she was less inclined to do that right now. With Sara looking so soft and exhausted as she lays there. 

She’s struck by the sudden urge to kiss her.

An urge that she does not act upon.

Instead she asks, “When was it?”

“A level three, Mayans, 200 something AD… There might have been a small incident with Nate and a monkey.”

“I have a feeling I don’t want to know.”

Sara’s laugh is tired but soft, “Yeah, just ignore that when you read the report.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out to the people who commented on the last chapter/messaged me have realizing the whole idea for this fic started as shield joke. if you didn't get the reference feel blessed that you never had to suffer through watching shield.
> 
> either way, enjoy this next chapter!

A part of her knows that they need to talk about this.

About the desire Sara has to be back with her team.

About the feelings that Ava has been pushing down for too long.

About  _ Rip _ ’s part in all of this. 

A part of her knows that’s the last thing she wants to talk about. 

Not when the next morning Sara is smiling, her hair up in a messy bun, wearing a loose t-shirt that Ava is pretty sure is hers and a pair of gym shorts, singing to herself as she moves around the kitchen, somehow managing to cook breakfast - omelettes again - and hold onto Lance at the same time. 

There’s a bruise on her arm that’s new and likely from whatever  _ mission  _ she was on that Ava pointedly ignores as she takes Lance out of Sara’s arms. 

She also ignores the reminder of the conversation she had overheard coming from this very kitchen the night before. Instead she settles down on one of the barstools with Lance in her arms, and says, “Tell me about the Mayans?”

“I thought you didn’t want to know,” Sara says.

There’s a lot of things Ava doesn’t want to know.

Hearing about whatever anachronism Sara chose to distract herself with last night, seems the easier burden to bear. 

Ava shrugs, “I’ve changed my mind.” 

She listens as Sara speaks. Telling an outlandish story that wouldn’t seem real unless it was the Legends. She focuses on that. Hoping, foolishly beyond all doubt, that this can last.

That she could push past the  _ regret  _ and the  _ longing  _ to focus on holding onto what she had.

This is better than nothing. 

Better than losing them. 

 

*

 

“I think we should talk.” 

Ava looks up from her desk, to the figure that stands there. Not Gary with the latest incident report that she had been waiting on for the last hour - she had snapped at him earlier, no doubt because of the other distractions and doubts that had been swirling through her mind. 

One of which was standing right in front of her.

Rip looks only marginally better than he did the night before. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ava says, “Unless this is about work, I really don’t want to have this conversation.” 

Rip ignores her attempt to offer them both an out. 

“I understand that she didn’t tell you about… About me.”

“I don’t think that was any of my business,” Ava replies, even though the words don’t feel right on her tongue.

The truth is she had wondered who Lance’s father was, but it also didn’t matter. It didn’t change things. She still loved Sara. She still loved Lance. She still wanted to keep this little  _ family  _ together. 

She needed to keep her family together.

And the only thing that could threaten that was revealing her feelings at the wrong time.

And well… The person standing right in front of her.

“Look,” she says, leveling Rip a steady look. Technically he was her superior. Technically, if he wanted to, he could fire her from the Time Bureau. Technically he could take all of her happiness away. Technically… She didn’t care. “I care about Sara, and about that baby. I’ve been there for her the past few months while you weren’t there. And I don’t want to lose that just because you’re suddenly in the picture.” 

“I didn’t know,” Rip points out, “She didn’t tell me.”

“Would that have changed things?” 

“Look I didn’t intend to-”

“To fuck a baby in her?” Ava prompts. Her lips turning down at her own crude turn of phrase, but she can’t help it. There’s a fire in her veins that she had thought she could push past. Until she couldn’t, because Rip was standing right there, looking like he expected her to just  _ understand _ . “Did neither of you know what a condom was?”

“We thought the world was going to end,” Rip says, as if that makes a difference.

It doesn’t.

Rip barrels on. “I need you to talk to Sara, talk some sense into her, that having a baby in the line of work that  _ we  _ all do is a risk. I,” he stops, suddenly going quieter, the fire gone from his voice for a moment, “I’ve already lost one son. Just help me make sure I don’t lose another.” 

A part of her wants to insist that Rip doesn’t get a say.

That he hasn’t been around the last four months. 

She pushes that part down just for a moment, feels a little of the tension leave her body, “I would do anything to protect them,  _ both  _ of them. You know that.”

 

*

 

“I know that look,” Sara says, when Ava gets home. “What’s on your mind?” 

Ava had been hoping that she could put off this conversation a little longer. Maybe until the weekend. But the conversation with Rip had gotten to her, enough so that she was distracted all through the rest of the work day, and coming home to Sara… 

“I’m worried about Lance,” Ava says, because that was an easy place to start.

An easy thing to focus on. 

Though by the way Sara’s eyes narrow, her position on the couch changing from casual to defensive in an instant, lets Ava know that she has not been as careful in bringing up this topic as she thought she had been.

“Rip talked to you,” Sara says. A statement, not a question. 

Because they both know exactly whose worries had wormed their way into Ava’s head.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t made some valid points once she started listening to him. There were risks. And people like them had plenty of enemies. Enemies that had nearly ended all of time only a handful of months ago. Enemies that could take an innocent child and use that as a way to  _ hurt  _ them. 

“Look you said yourself that you want to go back to the Legends-” 

“So you want me to just send  _ my son  _ away?”

No.

That was the last thing she wanted.

She wanted to keep him and Sara here forever. 

The thought of losing them, either of them, was enough to make her eyes burn. Ava pointedly looks away from Sara, instead focuses on a point on the wall behind her head, a smudge that she’s never noticed before.

It’s easier to talk to the smudge than to Sara.

“If it would keep him safe,” Ava says, “Rip said that there’s a place, where he grew up, safe from time-”

“So you’re listening to Rip now,” Sara snaps, her voice sharp and defensive. 

“I’m listening to logic! I want to protect Lance!”

“I’m a trained assassin, I think I can take care of my son!”

“What about when you’re gone, running off to the Legends because you’ve had a bad day or-”

“You never thought that I could do this.” Sara’s voice is angry now. “I don’t know why I’m surprised! I thought you were different, Ava, I really did, but I guess this is just another one of the patented Sara Lance failures in your mind.”  

Ava’s pretty sure that she deserves this.

That this was always inevitable.

It was what she did: ruined relationships, made people hate her.

No relationship of hers had ever gone right in the past, Ava wasn’t sure why she had thought this would ever be any different. That  _ this  _ wasn’t always how things would end. Sara angry at her calling the whole thing off before it could never even begin. 

“It’s not- You’re not” Ava starts, then stops, because she can feel it now. The burning in her eyes almost too much to keep down. She presses her lips together in an attempt to hold herself together. Lets out a breath that sounds shakey to her own ears. 

“You know, what,” Sara says, standing up from the couch, “I just realized, I don’t have to answer to you. To any of you. He’s my son, and this is  _ my life _ , and you don’t have to be a part of that anymore.”

Sara pushes past her. 

Roughly knocking their shoulders together on her way to get to Lance’s crib.

Like she wants a fight.

Like she wants a reaction.

Like she wants Ava to rise to the challenge. 

But for once, Ava can’t bring herself to do that. The feeling inside of her that hadn’t quite been anger, but had been worry mixed with doubt, turns to something else, something cold and hollow. 

Defeat. 

Loss. 

She can’t even bring herself to turn around, to tell Sara to stay, to try and find a way to turn back time, to undo the last ten minutes. 

Instead she stands there, listens to the sound of the baby’s crying distressed at being woken up and picked up so suddenly, followed by the slam of her front door, the pounding of footsteps down the stairs, until it’s all gone - and she’s left with nothing but an empty apartment filled with silence and regret. 

  
  



	8. Chapter 8

She can’t sleep.

The house feels too empty, too quiet. She wakes in the middle of the night, sudden and sure that she hears the echo of a cry or of Sara in the kitchen, only to feel a rush of disappointment when she knows that not to be true.

Still, she gets out of bed. Climbs down the spiral staircase into an empty kitchen, goes into the living room where the pullout bed is still a mess of unmade sheets and the cradle still lingers by the window like a ghostly reminder of what she’s lost too soon. 

Seeing it doesn’t make the feelings any easier to process.

Ava sits down on the edge of the couch’s pull out bed, and looks around the empty space.

Sara’s gone.

They’re both gone.

And that’s her fault. 

Because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut, couldn’t be happy with what they had, couldn’t help but let other people's doubts infect her mind.

It’s not the first time someone left, and knowing Ava’s luck, it wouldn’t be the last time. She had a habit of pushing people away, of being too much and not enough, and Sara leaving was just inevitable in a way. 

The truth is, she had known better than to get attached. Had known that obviously there had always been  _ someone else  _ in this situation. A invisible figure. Babies didn’t come from nowhere, and she’d known, that eventually that would come to take Sara away. She’d known that. 

And yet… Somehow she’d forgotten for a moment. 

Forgotten that she wasn’t made for happiness, and had fallen in love.

And now all she was left with was hurt. An endless quantity of hurt. Building in her chest. Pushing up against her lungs so that it felt hard to breathe, and when the choked sobs escape from her, all Ava can think is that they’re long overdue.

 

*

 

“You look terrible.”

She shoots him a look. Months ago she would have pointed out that such an observation was insubordination, but she supposed by now after having been so involved in the  _ situation.. _ . Gary deserved something closer an honest answer.

Ava rubs at her forehead, and the headache that is there, no doubt thanks to having cried it all out this morning. She knows that her eyes are still red, that no amount of makeup had been able to hide the evidence of it. 

He tests the waters again, “It didn’t go well?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Ava says, even though a part of her does.

She needs to let it all out. To be angry and upset and to push past it. 

She just isn’t certain that she’s ready for that yet. 

“Sara left,” Ava says, eventually and slowly. 

Gary’s look of pity is the exact reason she hadn’t wanted to have this conversation. 

Ava avoids looking at him and focuses on her work instead. Paperwork. Plenty of it. Built up from how distracted she had been the day before, after her conversation with Rip, when she had been planning to talk to Sara.

How had all of this happened over just two days?

How had she lost all of her happiness so suddenly without time to prepare?

“Because you told her how you felt,” Gary asks, the question is spoken slowly, like he wasn’t sure it was his place to ask.

It wasn’t.

“It wasn’t that,” Ava admits, a sort of bitter noise almost like a laugh slipping past her lips, “I never actually made it that far.”

“Then there’s still a chance-”

“No,” Ava cuts him off.

Cuts that hopeful look off. Because she’d thought of that.

If her feelings would have changed anything she would have tried by now, tried before… But when the moment had come, she had frozen up and let Sara walk out the door, and there went any chance of fixing that. 

This is what Ava deserves. She’s accepted that fact.

“No,” Ava repeats, “I’ve messed this one up good and proper. There’s no going back.” 

“You can’t really believe that?”

“How could I believe anything else?”

 

*

 

The days without Sara there do not become easier to bear. 

She stays later at work so that she doesn’t have to go home to an empty house.

She does everything to avoid crossing paths with Rip, which at one point includes missing out on a very important meeting. 

She pointedly does not look at the photos saved to her phone, the ones of happier moments, of Sara and Lance and everything that she lost.

She wakes up alone to an empty house, and she continues on. 

 

*

 

“I need you to find me an anachronism, a big one, serious enough to distract me from the fact that I apparently have emotions,” Ava tells Gary first thing in the morning, because it’s been a week without Sara and this wasn’t going to get easier. She just needed to forget about it. To get so caught up in work that she forgot about anything else.

Paperwork and monitoring other people’s missions wasn’t helping.

She needed one of her own.

She needed to get her hands dirty.

Something challenging. 

They go through possibilities together, putting up the map, studying the pinpoints of anachronisms. 

None of them are particularly  _ exciting _ , something that normally Ava would have been thankful for. She liked nice, clean and in and out missions. Ones where there was very little chance to mess something up. 

“What was that,” Ava asks, stopping him and pointing out an anachronism on the screen. One that had just jumped from a level three to a level eight right before her eyes. 

Which usually only meant one thing… 

“It looks like someone is trying to remove The Beatles from the timeline,” Gary says, glancing at the readout of the anachronism.  

That sounded like the sort of anachronism the Legends would take.

Suddenly the idea of finding an anachronism to distract herself from Sara didn’t seem like the best idea. Not when there was an alternative, not when she could make their paths cross again, and maybe this time say the things that she had failed to say before.

Maybe Gary had been right before.

That there was still a chance to fix thing. 

A feeling of hope rose up in her chest, even though she was certain it would fail, perhaps this would be her one chance to get closure. However this anachronism went… It would be over after this one way or another.

She’d either move on or… 

“Let’s go save rock ‘n’ roll.”

  
  
  
  
  
  



	9. Chapter 9

She was right.

The feeling of satisfaction only lasts for a moment.

Because she turns up with Gary and her team in the middle of a firefight between the Legends and some sort of cultist that looks more from Ava’s decade than this one. If their grey jumpsuits and advanced tech was anything to judge by. 

“Hey! It’s Agent Sharpe.” Ray announces her arrival in a sort of cheery tone, which normally she would have been annoyed with, but right at the moment is exactly what she needs. 

At least someone is happy to see her there.

Sara is on Ray’s other side in her White Canary costume, and she jerks to look at Ava with a look that is certainly not pleasure, but not entirely displeasure. She looks good, focused on the mission; there’s no circles under her eyes or obvious signs of sleeplessness. It seems one of them had been taking this week a lot better than the other.

Then again, with time travel what has been a week for Ava could be an hour or a month or a  _ year _ for Sara. 

Ava tries pointedly not to think about that.

About how much time could have passed.

Instead she meets Sara’s gaze and waits for her verdict. Waits until Sara breaks away from her gaze, turning back to the situation at hand. 

“I thought we were supposed to be Agent Harper’s problem now,” Sara says. “Isn’t he the one in change of monitoring my team?”

He is. They both know that. They both know this isn’t just about the anachronism.

But seeing what they’re currently dealing with, Ava lets that slide. 

Instead she keeps her tone casual as well. 

“Agent Harper was busy, so I figured  _ someone  _ had to step in and make sure you didn’t ruin time, again,” Ava says. 

She doesn’t miss it, the way Sara’s lips tilt up slightly into something fond and familiar. Just for a second.

“Try not to mess this one up any more than you already have,” Ava says, teasing just a little. 

“Oh, haven’t you heard? The Legends mess up time for the better. It’s our brand.”

“That’s what worries me.” 

Sara’s voice is a little less light hearted, for a moment, as she asks, “Is that the only thing that worries you?” 

No.

It isn’’t.

But they can’t get into that now. Not in front of both of their teams.

Instead Ava shifts slightly, a movement that could almost be considered a shrug, “At the moment, it’s all that matters.” 

 

*

 

They save the day.

Of course, they do.

Save music for generations to come. 

Put time back in order the way it should be.

With a few rough patches along the way, which no doubt meant there would be plenty of paperwork waiting for Ava back at HQ. But she wasn’t focusing on that -on the paperwork or the mission, or anything else.

Because she’s here, standing in Sara’s office, looking out through the glass to where Gary is talking with the rest of the Legends, cooing at the baby in Mick’s - because apparently of all people  _ Mick  _ was really good with babies - arms. A part of her wants to be out there with them.

A part of her knew that the exact place she needed to be was right here. 

“Is this the part where you lecture me about everything that went wrong on the mission?” Sara asks, leaning back against her desk.

They’ve been in this position before.

Too many times to count, but this is different. 

“That’s not why I came here,” Ava admits.

Sara stares at her for a long moment. “Was Agent Harper really busy?”

Ava shrugs. “To be honest, I didn’t ask, once I realized where you had to be. I…Well, I guess some of your impulsive nature rubbed off on me.” 

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Sara says, words meant to come off as teasing, but instead they come off tense.

Ava understands that.

She can feel the tension in the room. 

She looks away from Sara for a moment, unsure what to say, her eyes once again looking through the glass walls of Sara’s office, to the sight of the team with Lance. 

“Mick stayed back with him,” Sara says, sensing Ava’s unspoken question. “He was safe.” 

Ava turns back to Sara. Admitting this hurts. Since she knows it was what started all of this trouble in the first place, but she has to, if they were ever going to get to the point of why she was here. She couldn’t keep avoiding the elephant in the room. “I was concerned.”

“I know,” Sara replies. “You’ve always been the type to worry.” 

“I’m sorry,” Ava says, even though those aren’t the right words.

They still seem to soften Sara for a moment. 

This was it.

“I know you agree with Rip, that I should send my son away to some time pocket until he’s old enough to defend himself, but I can’t-” Sara stops, looking back out the window. “That’s not an option fo me. I’m not going to lose him.”

“I don’t agree with Rip,” Ava says.

Sara shoots her a confused look.

So, Ava continues. “I mean, I agree that he needs to be protected, and that keeping him on the Waverider is a risk. I’ve thought that since the beginning.” 

Sara nods at that a little, “I’m sensing a  _ but _ .”

“But,” Ava says, giving her that much, “I would never want to take your son away from you. It wouldn’t be right. The last week has proven to me that much.”

There is no way to put it into words.

How much she misses them.

How empty the house has been without the baby there.

How she would do everything in her power to protect  _ her family _ , even if they weren’t technically hers. 

“I don’t know what else to do,” Sara admits. A hesitant confession. “I can’t just leave the Legends, and I know this is no place to raise a baby, but getting a job in Star City just isn’t me…” 

“What if there was a way to keep Lance safe, and still work with the Legends?” Ava asks. “Maybe not all the time, but when the missions called for it. There is a position at the Time Bureau for an Agent to watch over and assist the Legends, and I could make a recommendation.” 

“What are you saying?” 

That really was the million dollar question. 

_ Come back to me _ , Ava wants to say. 

“I’m saying, that I know a place for Lance, lots of space, and already all set up for a baby,” Ava offers, “If you were interested in that sort of thing?”

Sara’s face goes through a series of emotions.

But none of them are angry.

That has to count for something.

“You sure you’d want that?” Sara asks. “I’ve been told that I’m a terrible roommate?”

“Yeah, you’re a bit of a mess and you make terrible decisions more often that I can count,” Ava admits. “Sometimes you do things that make me hate you.”

“Ouch,” Sara says, sarcastically. 

Ava takes that as a good sign. 

As a sign she might still have a chance. 

A chance that she has to take.

“But I also love you,” Ava says, before she can stop herself.

There’s a shocked look on Sara’s face, but Ava continues on, because if she stops now she’ll just chicken out. 

“I love you,” she says again, “I know this isn’t the right place to tell you. I was going to before… I had this whole thing planned out actually. Words I was going to say, and I got Lance that Beebo doll, but then Rip was there when I got home and everything spiraled out of control so suddenly that… I…”

She can feel the tears building at the edges of her eyes.

She can’t cry yet.

Not again. 

“Ava-”

“Please, let me finish,” Ava says, her voice tight, “I love you so much. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. I think when we were working together before, I started to feel things, but it wasn’t until you were there living with me that I really realized it. I fell for you so suddenly that I didn’t know what to do. I still don’t know what to do. But I miss you, and I miss Lance, and I miss the family that we built together. My house is lonely without you in it, and maybe we’ve still got things to sort, but we can do that. I believe in us, and in compromise, and making this work, because I love you and I just want you to come home.”

Sara is silent following her words.

Silent long enough that the dread and terror that had been building inside of Ava reaches a crescendo.

She’d read all of the signals wrong. Or maybe it was just too late to put things back together. 

Ava can’t look at Sara any longer; instead she looks up to the ceiling, pushing past the burning in her eyes. She’s crying. Not those terrible awful sobs from days before, but there’s wetness spilling down her cheeks that she doesn’t have it in her to brush away. 

Sara does though.

Cool fingers against Ava’s cheek, stopping a stray tear from rolling down her face. Her breath comes out a shaky, broken thing as she looks down at Sara, so close now. The closest she’s  been in what feels a lifetime.

And oh, does Ava love her. 

So much that it hurts.

That this hurts.

“Home?” Sara asks her voice a soft question. 

“Home,” Ava replies, her own voice shaking.

Sara kisses her. A sudden movement, pressing up on her toes, tugging Ava down towards her, while the hand that had been brushing her tears away a moment before curls around her neck to tug her closer. Ava goes willingly, lets her eyes slip shut, and focuses on the feeling of Sara’s lips against hers.

Whenever she pictured kissing Sara for the first time, it was always rough and hot and passionate, but this is something else, slow and soft, given with care.

Ava melts into it. 

Because she’s been waiting for this too long not to. 

Because this is everything she had ever hoped it would be.

Because she loves Sara, more than she’d even known was possible.

Even when they break apart for air, they don’t move far from each other. Foreheads pressed together as they both breathe slowly again, lips brushing against each other, Ava holding onto Sara desperately. She’s already lost her once, she isn’t about to risk losing her again. 

“Hey, Ava, let’s go home.” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just the epilogue left! i'll get that right up for you guys tomorrow after i get off work!


	10. epilogue - a few months later

This is what happiness feels like.

Happiness that Ava didn’t even know she was made for.

Happiness that she would fight for until her final breath.

Happiness that comes in the form of Sara, crossed legged on the floor across from her holding Lance up on his still slightly unsteady feet, and shooting her the biggest and most wild grin, because  _ their  _ baby was just starting to walk.

And if he was anything like his mother, he was going to be nothing but trouble for them from here on out. 

To think that a year ago she and Sara had been fighting Mallus side by side, not realizing that the biggest challenge to come for them wasn’t going to be a supervillain, but rather a baby that was going to turn their lives around into something else.

Ava certainly never would have expected it. 

Never considered that this could be her life.

Ava has to admit, that likes the person that she’s become, since Sara had brought Lance into their lives.

She likes this.

Peaceful mornings with her family, where for a second they can forget that they’re time travelers who have literally saved the world on multiple occasions, and, in Sara’s case, broken it on a few occasions too. 

“Alright, you ready to try again, baby?” Sara asks, looking up at Ava with a smile.

Ava tries her best not to get lost in Sara’s gaze. Lost in her love for this woman. A love that blinds her every time she thinks about it. 

“Go to Mommy Ava,” Sara says. 

“I’m not... technically,” Ava insists like she always does.

At some point they’d eventually have to figure out what Lance was going to call the two of them. Obviously, Sara was his mom, first and foremost. But if the box that Ava had carefully hidden in her office back at the Bureau had anything to say about it, Sara wouldn’t be his only one soon. 

Later.

There would be time for that later. 

For now, she holds her arms out and watches as their baby boy walks across kitchen floor on shaky legs, taking eight shakey steps before he pitches forward into Ava’s waiting arms. She catches onto him, holding him close, and pressing a kiss to his soft baby head. 

“I’m so proud of you,” she says, holding onto the little boy -who mumbles something almost like  _ mama _ against her chest - she tries not to let that word make her heart beat faster; it’s the only word Lance knows, it doesn’t mean anything yet, not really - and looks up at Sara across the room for her, “Both of you.” 

Sara smiles back at her.

Reading between the lines as she always does. 

“Love you too, Aves.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING ALONG! 
> 
> i hope you all enjoyed this story as much as i enjoyed writing this! while this may have started as a self-indulgent gift to emily because of our long standing "lance hunter" hc which turned into "lance lance and his army of moms" hc, it turned into so much more than that thanks to all of your feedback (whether comments here, messages/reblogs on tumblr, and shouting with me on twitter)!
> 
> im probably going to revisit this verse with a one shot or two in the future (femslash feb is next month) so keep an eye out for that! in the meantime, find me on twitter or tumblr @plinys
> 
> and as always a huge thanks to jackie - my beta, my hero, and the only reason this fic was even 20% readable 
> 
> thanks for reading!


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